Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,On the occasion of the completion of reconstruction after Wen Chuan earthquake happened on May 12, 2008, 3 deadly-stricken provinces and National Administration Institute jointly host this international seminar to summarize the success achieved during the earthquake relief work and after-quake reconstruction, intercommunicate the work methods, experience and patterns, especially to listen to the ideas and suggestions from experts, which will be instructive for us to accomplish all kinds of reconstruction missions with high efficiency, high standard and high quality. It will also provide valuable reference for China and all countries around the world when facing big natural calamities. Here, on behalf of Shaanxi Provincial Government, I’d like to extend my warmest congratulations to the seminar and avail this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to ministries of the state, international organizations, foreign governments for your great support during the reconstruction. Next, I’d like to briefly introduce the progress of the after-quake reconstruction and some experience.

I. Progress of the After-quake ReconstructionShaanxi province was one of the three most deadly hit provinces during Wen Chuan earthquake. 10 cities were affected by the disaster in different scale with a direct loss of 24.5 billion Yuan. Ning Qiang, Lue Yang, Mian Xian counties and Chen Cang district of Baoji City were listed as severely-hit counties and were fit into national plan and partnership assistance. Nan Zhen and other 35 counties were listed as generally-hit counties and were asked to be rebuilt with our own funds. In these two years, with the correct guidance of the central party committee and the state council, and with the unselfish assistance from the international community, Tian Jing city and other brother provinces and cities, the party committee and government of Shaanxi province led Shaanxi people to work hard and preserving, rely on our own effort and made big progress and achievement in the reconstruction. By the end of July, 22.918 billion Yuan investment was made in the 4 severely-hit counties, accounting for 74.1% of the total investment; 4115 projects were started, accounting for 99% of all projects; 2448 of them were accomplished, accounting for 59%.

(I). Rural housing and Tian Jing assisting projects were accomplished firstly. Houses of 241,200 households were repaired and reinforced by the end of 2008. Repaired houses of 121, 400 households were finished by the end of November, 2009. 295 projects of 9 categories launched by Tian Jing to Ning Qiang and Lue Yang counties were finished and put into use. Ning Qiang Tian Jing Middle School, Ning Qiang Tian Jing Hospital, Lue Yang Tian Jing High School, Lue Yang Tian Jing Vocational Center became model projects for the partnership assisting projects. Meanwhile, in order to further deepen the all-round economic and social cooperation between Shaanxi and Tian Jing, we signed Minutes on Handing over the Assisting Projects and Reinforcing all-round Cooperation, which defined relevant issues about future cooperation and exchange.

(II). Remarkable achievements have been made in reconstruction of houses in towns, schools, hospitals and other public service buildings. 10,910 apartments were planned to be built and 8792 apartments have been finished, accounting for 81% of all the planned ones. 416 schools are in construction with the operating rate of 99%, among which, 333 have been finished, accounting for 79%. Projects concerning medical and public health were all started and 682 of them have been accomplished, accounting for 93%. 2216 projects concerning public service facilities, culture, sports, employment and social security were started, accounting for 99%. 1596 have been finished, accounting for 72%. After reconstruction, public service buildings such as schools, hospitals, homes for the aged were greatly enhanced.

(III). Infrastructure projects in countryside and towns and industry projects were implemented with faster pace. 777 rural projects were all launched. 84 of 87 township projects were started. 121 infrastructure projects of 122 were started. 228 of 234 industry projects went into operation. 79 of 80 projects of market service system were on stream. A large scale of transportation, energy, irrigation projects have been accomplished gradually. So far, the infrastructure of the quake-stricken area is much better than before. All these enhanced the “blood-generating” ability and play an important role in the economic and social development in those places.

(IV). Disaster prevention and deduction and ecological restoration projects go through smoothly. 360 of 372 disaster prevention and deduction projects were started to operate, accounting for 97%; 186 of 192 ecological restoration and environmental renovation projects got into operation, accounting for 97%; 54 projects of land coordinate and environment rectifying projects have been operated. Feng Huang Shan geological disaster emergency treatment project has been accomplished and checked. Other projects are making progress as planned. According to the progress of these projects, Shaanxi can basically finish all the reconstruction tasks by the end of September this year; realize the goal of “accomplishing duties of 3 years in two years” set by the central party committee and the state council and ensure each household has place to live, each family has employed member, each person has guarantee, facilities are improved, economy grows and the environment is enhanced.

II. Some Experience from Earthquake Relief Work and ReconversionReviewing the earthquake relief work and reconstruction in the past two years, we deeply feel the firmly leadership of the central party committee and the state council as well as the advantage of China’s political system, which is also the fundamental guarantee for our success; feel the tenacity and cohesive force of Chinese people when facing tremendous disaster are big support for our success; and highly effective mobilization, , feel the powerful management and executive capacity of the party committees and governments of all levels are important foundations for our success. We also deeply feel that if we want to ensure a high efficient, high standard and high quality reconstruction, and make sure the quake-hit people are settled down as soon as possible, we must strengthen the leadership, plan scientifically, give priority to key projects, strengthen supervision and put all these measures into implementation. Specifically speaking, it is to establish “4 systems” and “4 insists”.

(I). Build “4 systems”.A unified organization leadership system must be built to ensure the earthquake relief work and reconstruction. After the earthquake, the conducting organizations of all level governments were formed quickly. It coordinated the upper level government with the lower ones, coordinated the army with the local government, mobilized all people around and collaborate the efforts of different regions to ensure a harmonious and orderly relief work. When coming into the recovery period, according to the overall plan of the central government, we established leadership organizations of different levels timely to strengthen the organization and coordination of reconstruction work; establish supervising mechanism of relief funds and goods to ensure the safe and effective utilization of state investment and social donations; we also sent working teams to the frontline and guide the reconstruction work in the quake-stricken counties and regions.

A scientific planning system must be built to make sure the relief work and reconstruction. We made 40 county-level project plans, 4 implementation plans for severely-hit counties, Tian Jing assisting project plan, plans for partnership assisting projects, implementation plans for rural housing, schools, hospitals, water supply facilities, etc. Departments and governments of cities and counties tried hard to raise funds, operate projects, speed up the process, guarantee the construction quality and took responsibilities according to the reconstruction plan set by the provincial government and push forward the reconstruction work in an orderly and effective way.

A systematic and effective supporting system must be built to make sure the relief work and reconstruction. During the whole process of reconstruction, the central government issued Ideas of Policies and Measures on the After-quake Reconstruction and Guiding Ideas on the After-quake Reconstruction as well as some other important documents. Concerning the reality of Shaanxi province, we formulated supporting policies on finance, land, etc and assisting policies on people’s lives, policies about subsiding the earthquake hit people to build houses, which played a crucial role in earthquake relief and reconstruction. Especially the great plan of the central government on partnership assisting mechanism, which required Tian Jing to support Ning Qiang and Lue Yang counties in Shaanxi. We also carried out partnership assisting in Shaanxi province proper. All these measures speeded up the reconstruction.

A strict and standard supervision system must be built to ensure the relief work and reconstruction. The security of funds for relief work and reconstruction is highly concerned by the whole society and the construction quality is crucial for the success of reconstruction. Therefore, from the beginning of relief work, both the central party committee and the state council paid much attention to fund supervision. They made careful arrangement, offered clear requirements and visited the stricken regions for several times. According to the arrangement of the central government, Shaanxi also established and perfected our own supervision organizations, policies and rules, strengthened the supervision measures and formed a supervision and inspection mechanism which collaborated auditing, discipline inspection and supervision, state, province, cities and counties. Shaanxi Provincial Discipline Inspection Committee and Shaanxi Supervision Bureau sent special envoys timely to relief fund and commodity administration departments such as the provincial Red Cross, Provincial Charity Association and Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, followed up and supervised the fund and goods reception and issuing, publicized the utilization of donations to the public periodically to ensure a clear and reliable account. All the reconstruction projects are in line with the goal of “no regrets, no hidden perils and no burdens”. They supervised the quality, security, cost and function and made sure the reconstructed buildings were safe.

(II) Four InsistsFirstly, insist on giving priority to people’s interest and people’s lives. In the 4 severely-hit counties, first priority was given to repair and rebuild houses, schools, hospitals, homes for the aged and other public facilities. Office buildings for governments started to be repaired and rebuilt only since this year. The provincial government allocated 5 billion Yuan to initiate 1145 projects concerning education, public health and homes for the aged in 36 generally-hit counties to keep the same construction pace with those ones in severely-hit counties.

Secondly, insist on making an overall plan of fund utilization. After the earthquake, except for fiscal investment from government of different levels, there was also large amount of social donations, partnership assisting funds, special party membership dues and donations to the Red Cross and Charity Association. The provincial government set a principle of “clear channels, no change of the functions, utilizing as a whole, meriting separately, being open and transparent.” We effectively integrated donations from all sides and made full use of the fund to ensure all money were used on reconstruction and to quake-hit people and make full use of all kinds of relief funds.

Thirdly, insist on formulating rules and systems and guaranteeing the quality. Since there were too many and tough reconstruction projects after quake, in order to guarantee the quality, the provincial government formulated Quality Management Measures for After-quake Reconstruction Projects, Temporary Measures of Executive Punishment on Quality Problems of After-quake Reconstruction Projects, Measures on Checking After-quake Reconstruction Projects, Notice on Strengthening Supervision on Biding for After-quake Reconstruction Projects, and Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of Relief Funds and Commodities. All these rules rectified the working process of reconstruction, clearly defined the duties of choosing location, building design, project bidding, construction and check. We were strict in choosing construction teams, building materials and construction supervision and checking to guarantee each project is safe and disburden.

Fourthly, insist on innovating and jointing efforts to push forward the progress. This after-quake reconstruction was powerfully supported by several ministries of the state council. They broke up the tradition, simplified the procedures, gave full play to ourselves in planning, land, etc, and greatly pushed forward those projects. We also insisted on treating special issues specially and simplified the procedures and tried out utmost to provide conditions for grass level governments and accelerated the construction pace. Furthermore, we planed the development of the urban areas and the rural ones as a whole, insisted on combining reconstruction with repairing dangerous houses in the countryside, construction of low-rent houses, immigration for ecological reasons and immigration for poverty-relief reasons as a whole. We encouraged some households to move into towns, which not only solved the housing problem of quake-affected people but also pushed forward the long-term development of the quake-hit areas.

These “four systems” and “four insists” are powerful guarantees for our reconstruction and played a crucial role in flood-fighting of this year. We are assured that with the firm leadership of the central party committee and the state council, as well as the great support from all walks of life, we will accomplish all reconstruction tasks in time and we are determined to be successful in the fight against flood and ensure a steady and fast economic and social development in Shaanxi.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the host—Sichuan provincial government and extend my appreciation again to governments of different countries, international organizations and ministries of the state for your tremendous support. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to visit Shaanxi.